The Fence and the Fire
by Brienna217
Summary: Katniss struggles to agree to Peeta's greatest wish until witnessing something that causes her to want her fiery spirit back. A short story about healing and moving on. (Could probably be a K rating.) All rights to Suzanne Collins, I own nothing.


The Fence and the Fire

"The thing about chaos, is that while it disturbs us, it too, forces our hearts to roar in a way we secretly find magnificent."

-Christopher Pointdexter

I stormed out of the house throwing my fathers hunting jacket around my shoulders in a flurry. He had asked again. With that same patient yet pleading look in his eyes. He had asked every year for the past fifteen years. But, I couldn't, not after seeing children burnt to ashes and sacrificed for entertainment. So I took off to the place I always felt safe, the woods. On my way there, I vaguely noticed large black trucks in the square. But, I just kept going. I spent the entire day in the woods trying to convince myself that I wasn't a terrible person for saying no to him.

When the sun started to set, I realized I needed to head back so he didn't worry. I was almost to the fence line when I heard heavy footfalls, the sound of heavy boots scuffing the dry ground. I don't know what memory it triggered but I found myself scaling the closest tree before I had even consciously decided to do so. I gained the courage to peer out between the leaves. There were soldiers. For a moment, my heart raced, I found myself reaching for an arrow that I didn't have since I had already stowed my bow away. But, then I realized they were military personnel. From our government. Our good, sane government.

I scooted forward onto a thinner branch trying to get a better look at them. There were about six of them. All holding tools of some sort gesturing to the fence and talking amongst themselves. Then, after a while they all directed their gaze to a tall muscular man in the middle. But, he seemed to shake his head and he gestured in the opposite direction. The other soldiers all stood there for a moment before they reluctantly headed back toward town. One handed the soldier a large tool before he headed on his way. The soldier stood and watched them all leave until they were out of sight. He stared at the fence for a moment. And in that moment I took in his dark hair, long legs and very broad shoulders.

Then, he took step forward and I almost gasped because I could tell from that far away. The way he walked that allowed his boots to glide across the ground almost as if they were floating. No sound what so ever as he walked in his large combat boots. I had only ever met one other person who could do this. A tall, silver eyed dark haired man.

Gale was here. I knew that he had initiated recovery projects in all of the Districts but I didn't think that a no longer electrified metal chain link fence meant anything. He walked along the edge of the fence. I found myself climbing down the tree and slinking through the edge of the woods following him for about ten minutes when he started to slow in front of the six foot wide gap in the fence. The spot I've been entering the woods since for the past fifteen years. Gale walked to the gap and then suddenly fell to his knees, his face in his hands.

Then I understood. This was the place where Gale and the other miners in an adrenaline rush of strength pulled down a section of the fence to lead the people Gale had herded there to safety. Eight hundred people saved because of Gale Hawthorne, but I don't think he saw it that way. All of a sudden, he raised his head and even from there I could tell that the fire was still in his eyes. He started to raise the tool before throwing it aside. Like an angry animal he grabbed the chain link and began to rip it back and forth, climbing a section and ripping it backward as he jumped down. There was a 20 foot section laying open but he didn't seem to find that pleasing enough as he grabbed a length of it and ran backwards disrupting the entire chain for who knows how far. I had forgotten how strong he was. Built like a marine now, large muscles allowing him to tear down the fence that once had us locked in. He wasn't the same man he was then, and quite frankly he was scaring me.

I always knew that Gale had enough fire to personally start a rebellion, but seeing him like that made me realize that I had lost my fire. Where as he marches back here to destroy the very thing that made it so hard for him to feed Rory, Vick, and Posy. The fence that forbid people from hunting, the law about not crossing the fence that ultimately led to the forty deep lash marks that I am sure still mar his back. That almost killed him if it weren't for the girl with the strawberries. Another person from 12 he wasn't able to save because of the fence blocking his way. He continued to tear it apart,while I had sat hear submissive to it for fifteen years.

Then, all of a sudden, he stopped just as quickly as he started, seeming satisfied with the forty foot hole he had created, and then he looked up. Directly to where I was crouched in the bushes. His silver eyes burned into mine for the last time. Of course he knew I was here the whole time, he would have been able to tell even before being trained as a General and being in combat. He simply nodded, as if to say, "it is done. I did it for us."

I thought of the moment in the cabin where he spun me around thinking that we would take our families and run. Never to return. Of course, he looks different now, he had a beard, and his shoulders had the slightest curve that shows how tired he was. But, of all of us Gale had changed the least. The war had simply been a way for him to vent his anger he had always possessed toward the Capitol. And he certainly didn't let the Capitol take his fire. Suddenly I felt as though I should have helped him tear down the fence. I wouldn't have been able to speak to him. But it would have been one last thing we could have done together; silently. There's always been to much grief to allow for speaking.

All to soon, he turned and walked away, and I tried to memorize the way he walks. Silently, like a ghost. Making no sound.

After an hour of sitting there, feeling almost numb, I started to walk home very slowly. I wanted my fire back, that much I had realized. By still living in fear, I was still letting the Capitol win, loosing a little bit more of my fire every day. So, I swallowed my fear and marched home determined to answer yes to the question that Peeta has been asking for the past fifteen years.

So, in reality it was never Peeta's continual asking and pleading. It wasn't his speeches and promises about how he will keep our child safe. No, in reality it was that fence and the fire I saw in those grey eyes. Not that I would ever admit that to anyone.

Besides, that was the last time I ever saw Gale Hawthorne.


End file.
